Carnal Reason

If the Dems want to differentiate themselves from the Republicans, here is something they might consider opposing.

We mentioned recently that politicians are looking to expand the DMCA, hoping to crack down on the possession of any tool that would help to circumvent DRM. As if this weren’t draconian enough, some have noticed sentencing guidelines contained in the law that seem really out of synch with other federal statutes. The bill’s new revisions would allow for 10-year sentences for music and software piracy. This is longer than the five years one can get for assaulting a police officer, and the seven years for downloading child pornography. This seems like misplaced priorities, and poor use of the government’s criminal justice resources. This is particularly strange, in light of the fact that The Justice Department is stepping up their fight against child porn. This includes new measures that would create more liability for ISPs, among others (nevermind that such liability is misplaced, since the ISPs aren’t actually the ones engaging in criminal behavior). Still, any law that would make piracy a more severe crime than child porn is an indication that the government has completely lost its priorities, and is totally at the whim of its industry donors.

techdirt.com

Preserving obsolete business models by jailing file sharers is a sucker’s game. This will not keep anyone in office, or in profits.

By the way, file sharers are not pirates. Pirates killed people, sank ships, enslaved crews, and generally committed mayhem. They did not share music. Let’s not frame the discussion a twisted way.

Posted on April 26th, 2006 by pwyll
Filed under: law